If the French noblesse had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants, their chateaux would never have been burnt. - G M Trevelyan

Sunday, February 15, 2009

To Whom it May Concern

Overlooked in the resent Antigua farce was the revelation that Hugh Morris expressed his concerns about the state of the outfield in a letter to Alan Hurst, the match referee.

Not an e-mail, or a text message, a fax or a phone call- or even a wander down the corridor at the Antigua Hilton to knock on his door.

No - he wrote him a letter! How quintessentially and ridiculously British! And this morning's Observer suggests that Morris is a serial letter writer - he's just written another one to the WICB asking for compensation fer the England spectators.

You have a vision of Morris digging out the Basildon Bond paper, filling his inkpen and then agonising for hours how to address Alan Hurst - Dear Alan, Dear Mr Hurst, Dear Sir?

Then there would have been the usual search for a stamp - asking his wife 'We had some at Christmas- where did you leave them?'